Supreme Commander (20 page)

Even dinner was a problem. The governor of Gibraltar had asked Giraud and Eisenhower to be his guests, but if both went there would be a seating problem. Eisenhower decided to eat with Clark at the Royal Navy mess so that Giraud could sit in the position of honor at the governor’s right. At ten-thirty Eisenhower and Giraud went back into the caves. They argued for another two hours and again failed to reach any agreement.
⁸

By the end of the evening Holmes was too tired to interpret any longer, so Clark took over. His French was not good, but everyone got along without any difficulty because, as Eisenhower put it, “each of us merely repeated, over and over again, the arguments he had first presented.” Eisenhower finally said they might as well get some sleep. As they shook hands, Giraud’s good-night statement was, “Giraud will be a spectator in this affair.”
⁹

By the time the meeting broke up, the assault forces were on their way in. Butcher jubilantly reported that Eisenhower’s luck was holding—the surf on the Morocco coast was down to three to five feet. Patton’s men could go ashore and he would not have to bombard Casablanca. As Eisenhower dictated a long cable to CCS on the results of his meeting with Giraud, news came in from Oran. The landings there were unopposed. A message from Admiral Hewitt, naval commander in Patton’s force, said the operation was proceeding on schedule. There was no news from Algiers. Satisfied and exhausted, at 4:30
A.M
. Eisenhower unfolded a cot in his office and went to sleep.
¹⁰

He was up at seven, reading messages and dictating cables. The situation was unclear, partly because the messages he was receiving were frequently garbled, but as far as he could tell everything was going ahead about as he anticipated. The French were beginning to resist, but Eisenhower could not tell how actively. “I’d give a month’s pay for an accurate report this minute from each sector,” he told Smith, who was in London, at 9:30
A.M
. He did know that his troops were fairly solidly ashore at Oran and Algiers.
¹¹

Giraud came in and the AFHQ staff gave the Frenchman exaggerated reports of the success of the landings. Somewhat subdued, he went into Eisenhower’s office at 10
A.M
. for a conference. He must have sensed the hostility around him, perhaps even realized the potential danger he was in if he refused to co-operate. Butcher reported that “all felt something had to be done with him … even a little airplane accident.…” The
governor of Gibraltar had told Eisenhower that “he had a good body disposal squad if needed.”
¹²

Eisenhower opened the meeting. “It is impossible for me to serve two masters,” he said. Giraud admitted that was true and declared he had no intention of asking for command of the air and sea forces. But the bulk of the ground forces, in any fight with the Germans, would be French, and they would only obey him. Eisenhower demurred, discussion followed, and no progress was made. Eisenhower finally agreed to “consult” with Giraud on the big decisions, making him in effect a co-commander for ground action. Giraud said that made him much happier.

After a few more minutes of polite talk Giraud concluded a gentlemen’s agreement with Eisenhower. As the commander in chief reported to the CCS, “The basis of the agreement is exactly what I offered Kingpin throughout the long conference of yesterday.” Eisenhower would recognize Giraud as the commander in chief of all French forces in North Africa and as governor of the area. Eisenhower based his right to make this appointment on military conquest, although he hoped to keep up the fiction that it represented the real desire of the French people. Giraud agreed to go to Algiers the next day to begin organizing the French forces for employment against the Germans.
¹³

Tired but happy, Eisenhower had lunch, then took an hour’s nap on the field cot in his cave. Giraud woke him to ask for a radio-equipped plane for himself and modern fighters to train French pilots. Eisenhower said he would see what he could do. Giraud then returned to the subject of a landing in the south of France and Eisenhower had to calm him down again.
¹⁴

When Giraud left, Eisenhower sat down at his desk, took a sheet of paper, and began to write. He scribbled “Worries of a Commander” at the top of the page, then listed ten points. He was uneasy because Spain was “ominously quiet.” The French opposition, which had been halfhearted, had “blazed up, and in many places resistance is stubborn.” Three of his points centered around his troubles with Giraud, and another with the fact that no Frenchman, “no matter how friendly toward us,” was able to stop the fighting. The reports he was receiving were “few and unsatisfactory”; in fact “we cannot find out anything.” Indications were, however, that the Algiers force was being held up and the push for Bône and Bizerte delayed.
¹⁵

Eisenhower was beginning to realize that none of Murphy’s elaborate schemes got off the ground. In Oran the chief of the conspiracy lost his nerve and the American troops met a hostile reception and had to fight
their way ashore. French resistance was fierce and effective. In Casablanca one of Mast’s friends, General Emile Béthouart, did act. He had his collaborators surround the house of General Auguste Noguès, the resident general, and issued orders to Army units not to fire on the invaders. But Béthouart moved too soon, for Patton’s men were still hours away. When news of the invasion of Oran and Algiers came in, with the information that the French in those cities were resisting, Noguès turned the tables on Béthouart, had him arrested, and told the troops to fight. They did.

In Algiers the situation resembled a bad musical comedy. Shortly after midnight on November 8 Murphy went to the suburban residence of General Juin and solemnly announced that an invasion was in progress. He added that it had Giraud’s sanction. Juin was unimpressed by Giraud’s name but conceded that an American success was vital to the salvation of France. A tough, practical man, Juin was easily the best soldier in the French Army. He was also a patriot who wanted above all to liberate his country from Germans. He would have ordered the French in Algiers to lay down their arms, but he could not because by coincidence his superior, Admiral Darlan, was himself in the city, having come there to see his son, who was in the hospital. Darlan could quickly overrule Juin.

At Juin’s suggestion Murphy went to see Darlan, roused him from his bed, and persuaded him to come to Juin’s villa with him. Mast had meanwhile used his irregular forces to place Juin under house arrest and take over the city. When Murphy arrived with Darlan in tow, Juin implored Darlan to send out orders to Oran to stop the bloodshed. Juin himself had already ordered the troops in Algiers to withdraw before the invaders. Darlan said he could do nothing without Pétain’s authority, and Murphy gave him permission to send a message to Vichy.

The regular troops in Algiers, meanwhile, disregarded Juin’s and Mast’s orders, sent Mast’s irregulars flying, and placed Murphy under house arrest. The Americans had landed but they were floundering about in confusion on the outskirts of the city. The two sides soon clashed and blood began to flow. Juin sent out repeated orders to cease fire while the Americans broadcast statements from Giraud that had no effect at all.

About nine that morning Darlan heard from Pétain—the Vichy head of state told him to act freely. Darlan then arranged for a cease-fire in Algiers but refused to act for all French North Africa until he had a meeting with Eisenhower.
¹⁶
As Eisenhower wrote his “Worries of a Commander,” resistance in Oran and Casablanca continued.

After Eisenhower finished writing he called Butcher into his cave,
handed him the sheet of paper, and began to talk about where they should eat. Cunningham walked in with a message from Algiers. Eisenhower learned that Darlan was in the city and was willing to negotiate about all of North Africa. “Ike spluttered,” Butcher recorded. Someone asked about Giraud. “What I need around here is a … good assassin!” Eisenhower said. Cunningham reminded Eisenhower of what Churchill had told him: “Kiss Darlan’s stern if you have to, but get the French navy.”
¹⁷

The message from Algiers indicated that Darlan would not meet with any Frenchman, but only Eisenhower or his representative. Since Darlan had been told that Giraud was in Gibraltar, that meant he would not deal with Giraud. Eisenhower informed Giraud of Darlan’s presence in Algiers and Giraud said he would not deal with Darlan, whom he distrusted and hated. Eisenhower explained to Smith that Giraud “wants to be a big shot, a bright and shining light, and the acclaimed saviour of France,” and so did Darlan. Eisenhower was caught in the middle. He had promised to push Giraud to the top, and now had “to use every kind of cajolery, bribe, threat and all else to get Darlan’s
active
cooperation.” Disgusted, he exclaimed, “All of these Frogs have a single thought—‘
ME
.’ ” He said he was tired, but not because of the operation—“it’s the petty intrigue and the necessity of dealing with little, selfish, conceited worms that call themselves men.”

Eisenhower was prepared to send Clark to Algiers to talk to Darlan. The situation, as he understood it, was that Mast had done the job in the Algiers area and the city was in Allied hands. At Oran Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall had enough strength ashore to launch a decisive attack. Patton was facing resistance everywhere, and one report indicated that he had re-embarked at one beach. Eisenhower refused to believe it.
¹⁸

Eisenhower slept well the night of November 8–9; the best night’s sleep, he wrote Marshall, he had had in fourteen weeks. He was satisfied with the way the American troops were fighting, even though it infuriated him that the French were resisting. Every bullet that was expended against the French was “that much less in the pot with which to operate against the Axis.” Worse, every minute lost meant a week of reorganization and straightening out later, and “I am so impatient to get eastward and seize the ground in the Tunisian area that I find myself getting absolutely furious with these stupid Frogs.”
¹⁹
It was already clear, moreover, that Murphy had been “completely mistaken” about Giraud. The proclamations in Giraud’s name had done absolutely no good. As
far as Eisenhower could tell, not a single French soldier had quit fighting because of them.
²⁰
Eisenhower had made a deal with Giraud and would live up to it, but increasingly it looked as though the man to work with was Darlan.

The reason was that Darlan had a place in the French hierarchy while Giraud did not. There was no single reason why any French officer who had stuck with Vichy this far should suddenly go over to Giraud. None of Eisenhower’s promises to Giraud had any legal backing. Except through
force majeure
, there was no justification for Eisenhower’s forcing Giraud on North Africa as commander in chief or governor or anything else.

Darlan had an established position. He had just come from Vichy and could be presumed to possess Pétain’s “secret thoughts,” the thoughts the marshal would have expressed had more than half his country not been occupied by the Germans. Darlan could issue orders and claim they really came from Pétain, and even if they did not he, Darlan, was commander in chief of French armed forces and thus his orders, unless countermanded, were legal. French soldiers could follow their natural inclinations and join with the Americans only if Darlan ordered them to do so, for only then would they be acting legally. To obey Giraud was to engage in mutiny.

Eisenhower and AFHQ were beginning to see all this. Around 11
A.M
. on November 9 Clark flew to Algiers. Eisenhower’s instructions were to come to terms with Darlan. While Clark was flying, Hitler was putting pressure on Pétain. The German leader was furious with the French, whom he accused of making a deal with the Allies. To appease him, Pétain authorized German use of Tunisian aerodromes and gave him permission to move large bodies of troops into Tunisia to aid the French in defending against Allied attack. When Eisenhower learned of Pétain’s action, he cabled Clark in Algiers, telling him to put the pressure on Darlan to “urge all Tunisian forces and leaders to destroy Axis planes and resist Axis invasion.”
²¹
Darlan, however, had already sent his own orders to Tunisia, telling the commanders there to co-operate with the Germans. Murphy could not bring him around, nor could Clark, who arrived in the late afternoon. Giraud got into Algiers shortly after Clark, but Darlan simply ignored his countryman.

On the morning of November 10, in a small room in the Hotel St. Georges, Clark met again with Darlan. Before a tense, perspiring crowd of American and French officers, Clark told Darlan he would force him to come to terms. Towering over the tiny admiral, Clark said his
alternatives were action or prison. Darlan, quivering though he was, said he would have to await Marshal Pétain’s orders. Clark flew into a rage. Juin saved the situation by calling Darlan aside and lecturing him on the senselessness of the battle at Oran and Casablanca. Darlan finally decided to go halfway. He told Clark he would order the troops to lay down their arms, but not to fight against the Germans. That meant Oran and Casablanca were now in Allied hands, but the Germans had Tunisia.

Immediately after the meeting broke up, Pétain declared from Vichy that he had removed Darlan from office. Clark hurried back to Darlan’s side. Darlan said he would have to cancel the armistice. Clark said in that case he would throw Darlan into prison. Darlan decided to let the cease-fire stand.

The next day, November 11, Hitler announced that he was going to march into southern, unoccupied France. Darlan then announced that this meant Pétain was no longer free to express himself and claimed that he had secret orders from Pétain (which he never produced) that gave him authority to act under such circumstances. At midday he declared that he was going to exercise the powers of the government in the marshal’s name. He again ordered a cease-fire and this time told the French in Tunisia to resist the German landings. Pétain stripped Darlan of his authority, transferring it to Noguès in Morocco, who nevertheless threw in with Darlan.